Northern League calls on European allies to join in opposition

(ANSA) - Rome, March 25 - Matteo Salvini, head of Italy's
regionalist Northern League, on Tuesday called on allies across
Europe to join in fighting "mass immigration" in the lead up to
May's European Parliament elections.

"We will propose a European alliance against mass
immigration," said Salvini, adding he hoped to attract
like-minded politicians from Austria, Denmark, Sweden and
France.

"It will be a fundamental part of our program," he added,
one day after he said the League was encouraged by the weekend
victory in French municipal elections of the far-right National
Front led by Marine Le Pen.

Salvini, whose party has taken strong stances against
immigration, said he was confident that such groups would unit
in their opposition to the euro and European institutions to
sweep elections in May.
"The dinosaurs and Euro-bureaucrats are afraid! A wind of
freedom is blowing from France," Salvini said Monday.

He added that his anti-euro forces would prevail over
European Union proponents including German Chancellor Angela
Merkel and Italian president Giorgio Napolitano.

"(European elections) will be a nightmare for Merkel,
Napolitano, and every fan of the euro. A different Europe is
possible," said Salvini in a statement on Facebook.

His position was buttressed by Le Pen who said in an
interview with ANSA Monday: "I call on all the Euroskeptic
forces in Europe to form an alliance in defense of national
States, the return of democracy, the sovereignty of peoples and
national identities".
During a news conference Tuesday, Salvini also complained
that Premier Matteo Renzi and his Interior Minister Angelino
Alfano have been too slack on the subject of immigration.
The League had also been strong and vocal critics of
Italy's former integration minister Cecile Kyenge, herself an
immigrant from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

"The incredible couple of Renzi-Alfano are succeeding in
what not even Kyenge managed to do: fill us with illegal
immigrants," said Salvini. He also complained that Alfano
has enforced "failed immigration policies".

As well, the League presented a motion of no-confidence in
Alfano on Tuesday on other law and order measures, accusing him
of overseeing the "emptying of prisons...dismantling of security
policy". Immigration has been a hot-button topic in Italy
as thousands of migrants arrived on the country's southern most
shores, fleeing violence in the Middle East and North Africa,
often by rickety sea vessels.

Last week, Italian Navy ships rescued approximately 1,000
migrants in small boats off Italy's southern coast in less than
24 hours.

That rescue operation came after more than 2,100 migrants
were rescued days earlier by the Italian Navy and Coast Guard
vessels, as they fled North African across the Channel of
Sicily.

Tens of thousands of migrants arrive in Italy from North
Africa every year and many others die attempting the crossing in
often unstable vessels.

Boat arrivals in Italy more than tripled last year from the
previous year, fuelled by the conflict in Syria and strife in
the Horn of Africa.

Also last week, Northern League activists demonstrated
against the arrival of a group of North African refugees, due to
be sheltered in a local hotel in the town of San Genesio in the
Pavia area south of Milan.